a review of

HOOPTOBER XII NIGHT TWELVE: Like Bustamante's previous film, the brilliant LA LLORONA, RITA is inspired by actual tragic events that occurred in Guatemala, in this case the 2017 fire that killed 41 teenage girls at a state-run orphanage that had been cited for a longstanding pattern of abuse, rape, and human trafficking. The girls had been locked in a schoolroom without food or water following protests and an attempted escape; The cause of the fire is unknown, but may have been set by the girls as a last-ditch attempt at getting their captors to release them. Bustamante dramatizes and fictionalizes these events through a magical-realist lens, envisioning the orphanage's child residents as supernatural beings -- angels, fairies, ghosts, and more -- and their captors as akin to witches and monsters. The abuses the girls suffer are never fully depicted onscreen but are alluded to in dialogue and the effects this treatment has on the characters. I'm not sure if I liked this one as much as I did LA LLORONA, but I appreciate Bustamante's desire to document injustice and to encourage resistance by ordinary people.